Sunday, March 13, 2011

The radioactive cloud over Fukushima is drifting towards the east. So far, a New York Times article suggests, there is no danger to Hawaii, though an aircraft carrier sailing in the Pacific has gotten itself plastered with radioactivity:

The Pentagon was expected to announce that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, which is sailing in the Pacific, passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, causing crew members on deck to receive a month’s worth of radiation in about an hour, government officials said Sunday.

The officials added that American helicopters flying missions about 60 miles north of the damaged reactors became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off.…“At this point, we have not picked up anything” in detectors midway between Japan and Hawaii, Ms. Thunborg said in an interview on Sunday. “We’re talking a couple of days — nothing before Tuesday — in terms of picking something up.”

[New York Times, Military Crew Said to Be Exposed to Radiation, but Officials Call Risk in U.S. Slight, 3/13/2011]

So the experts say we are in no danger right now. Probably, they are right. But these are the same folks, are they not, who insist that depleted uranium brought here by the military is no danger to us. And this is the same government that blasted the life out of a bunch of Pacific islands many years ago with nuclear tests. And yes, the same country that unleashed nuclear weapons on civilians in Japan. Forgive me if I don’t trust them.

Of course, I hope that the experts are right. Should a radioactive cloud pass over Hawaii, what will happen to our farmlands? Will we be able to eat local produce? Will we be able to drink that delicious Big Island milk? Should we all flee to Vegas?

Will we trust whatever we’re told? There’s little or nothing we could do if a plume were headed this way, but at least we should get the best and earliest advice.